Spicing up our Life

Today was a day to spice things up a bit. So being the practical person I am, I took Brenda to Avery Island the home of the plant that makes Tabasco sauce. There is a factory tour that consists of a 10 minute movie and a look at the factory floor. They produce about 3/4 of a million bottles of Tabasco sauce here each and every day. Guess a lot of folks need some spicing up.

Tabasco Sauce Factory VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

 

Now not all those bottles are the gallon jug size but I guess some folks need more spicing up than others.

Of course like all these tours they always have a gift shop and we managed to refresh our spice cupboard right from the source.

After the factory tour we took a spin around their Jungle Gardens, kind of a low budget Buchart Gardens. They were peaceful and would be a great place to settle down with a good book on a hot summer day. The egrets that nest here were unfortunately all on their southern winter vacation in South America and what with the cool temps the alligators were no where to be seen, so Meg missed another chance to meet one of those slithering critters…..from afar, not sure she is quick enough to get out of their way.

Jungle Gardens of Avery Island VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

 

After the tour we needed some nourishment and someone in Natchitoches the other day told us to stop in at Pat’s Landing in Henderson for some good food. It was nothing special and all deep fried so although it was OK if you like that kind of fare we won’t be heading back anytime soon.

We made it back to Poche’s in time for another great sunset though.

Camp Day

Today was a camp day for the most part. Meg and I walked this morning while Brenda did the laundry. All those exciting things were done by 9:00AM and we just kicked back for the rest of the day. Of course kicking back doesn’t  preclude a quick trip down to the local Wally World to pick up some of that Blue Belle Ice Cream. It should go well with the Chocolate Chip Pie Brenda is whipping up.

There are a couple of these fellows stalking along the shore line behind our rig and they also do a little stunt flying to entertain the campers

Would be hard to do that flying trick without a little help from Picasa and a very smooth water surface to use as a reflector.

We had an itinerant shrimp salesman come through camp today so we are chowing down on fresh shrimp, no oil that we can see, other than the vegetable type, sautéed with garlic and wrapped up as taco’s to go along with that pie and ice cream. Maybe Meg will need to drag me around the ponds a few more times tomorrow.

Yesterday we stumbled upon this bumper sticker with a little advice on how to live your life. Regardless of the source it is good counsel.

Covering some Ground!

Today we decided we needed to see some country, or rather I figured that and Brenda got caught in the truck. We headed out of Poche’s Fish-N-Camp and pointed the pickup towards Kaplan,, Louisiana where we were looking for a tiny country store and restaurant that has been recommended by many of our friends and fellow bloggers. 45 or so miles later we came upon a little store with a jam packed full parking lot, not exactly a well kept secret but a good sign nevertheless. It is the last weekend of the waterfowl hunting season here till after Christmas and it was apparent that most of the hunters in southern Louisiana depend on the folks at Suire’s to fix their lunches. There was a never ending parade of folks in camouflage ordering or picking up orders they had phoned in from their blinds and heading back out for the afternoon hunt.

Brenda had the Crab Pistolette’s (2) and I had a Shrimp Po’ Boy and we shared an order of Onion Rings. The Onion Rings were as good as I have ever eaten with the breading having the perfect mixture of spices for me and although it was my first Po’ Boy, it certainly won’t be my last, and the rest will have a tough test to measure up to. Pistolette’s for those who are unfamilar with them are dinner rolls stuff with crab meat and then deep fried, you can almost feel your arteries clogging up just thinking about them, but they are ‘oh so good’. To top it off we took a few chocolate covered peanut butter balls along for the rest of our journey. No point in just getting a couple of arteries unplugged might as well do them all while they are in there….

After we filled our stomach’s it was time to resume our journey. We headed for Oak Grove down near the coast so got to drive through a mix of terrain. Not long after we left Suire’s we headed out into the marshes or whatever folks call swamp down in these parts. Wandering along that 65 miles of road through the southern end of nowhere makes a fellow wonder who built this road and more importantly WHY, don’t get me wrong I enjoyed the scenery but my mind always comes back to the economics behind the project and unless I am missing something here they have to be pretty sketchy. Oh well nice of them to build that great road just so Brenda and I could get an up close and personal look at all that marsh. We did spot a few denizen’s of the swamp along the way.

And of course no long drive would be complete without a look at a little work going on to ensure America’s energy security.

Just use your imagination on the first picture and you’ll find a drilling rig working in there. Hard to see and maybe not to much impact either, although if folks down here don’t like them they can always depend on Canada’s Oil Sands to supply them with reasonably priced energy with  not much adverse effect on the environment. While I am on an environmental kick, we did have a look at what we could see and at least this far inland there seems to be no oil from the spill evident, although that could change further east and closer to the coast. But we have noticed an environmental issue that is probably bigger than the Macondo well spill and certainly more widespread. What is it with folks that makes them think they need to spread their trash along the highways and byways of this great country. I wish the shot below was the only place we have seen this but alas it is spread from here back to our own province of Alberta. C’mon folks I know landfills aren’t a great solution but surely they are better than this.

On the road back from Oak Grove we crossed the Intercoastal Waterway and saw this fellow moving a couple of big barges down the canal.

And just in case you think I forgot this was an RV’ing blog here is a picture of an RV that we passed along I-10 on the way home tonight

The power train for this outfit is in the red trailer just in front of it and I am sure it is pretty relaxing way to travel, but you would have to stay off the Interstates.

After our 245 mile jaunt today we arrived back here at Poche’s to watch the sunset.

Fish-N-Camp

Today was a beautiful morning here in Poche’s Fish-N-Camp near Breaux Bridge, Louisiana.

The campsite was all it was reported to be, quiet and spotlessly clean. Meg and I did our whole 3.? miles without leaving the property. There are five large ponds here and trails that circle the perimeters of them all. As long as you are self contained, as we are, it is hard to imagine a nicer spot to stay. Our strategy of keeping a controlled ooze happening seemed to work as we still have maintained our wide space between us and other rigs.

That is us dead centre in the first photo.

Today we pretty much had a camp day and other than an excursion into town for some supplies we just enjoyed this pretty spot. I did spring for lunch out for Brenda, Sam’s Club’s Polish Dog combo’s for a grand total of $3.62, yep, for the two of us, but other than that and a trip to Albertson’s we were just hanging here at camp. Later this afternoon we were treated to the local Christmas parade.

And Brenda collected a bunch of prizes before I got out there to see what she was up to and how she convinced them to give her all this loot.

Poches Fish n Camp

We left Natchitoches this morning and headed down the trail towards Breaux Bridge and Poches Fish-n-Camp. This site is built around a number of dredged ponds and every site is waterfront. The ponds are stocked with a variety of fish and campers are able to fish here without a license. It is not that crowded here so we have a pretty nice site without any close neighbours, at least as of the time of writing this. We are pretty good at looking spread out so most folks will probably pass up parking right next to us as well they should there is lots of room for everyone here.

There is one rig a couple of sites closer than the little trailer you can see off in the distance but so far our strategy is working fine.

It is pretty peaceful here as we are a few miles outside of town, and the sunsets are beautiful and even though there were no clouds to really make the colours outstanding it was still pretty nice.

This shot was taken from our dining room table as we ate our supper.

There were a couple of herons working along the lake this afternoon and the picture below is one of them just lifting off.

We are planning on sitting tight here for a week or so to give us time to do a little exploring in the area.

Natchitoches (Nakadissh)

When you are making up some spelling for a name why not make up one that at least sounds like folks say it. Strange but after asking a lot of folks and finally getting here and having the locals tell us time after time how we are saying it wrongly we have at last figured it out or close enough anyway that they don’t go into paroxysms' of laughter.

This is a great little town that we first discovered in 2003 while traveling through the country, a little later than the original settlers in 1714 but you know what they say about better late than never. Turns out that it is Christmas Festival this weekend so the whole town is buckling down and getting ready for an influx of a 100,000 or so folks. I am sure with those crowds descending on the place Al from the Bayfield Bunch will not be amongst them but we are as yet unsure if we will stick around or get out of Dodge, so to speak, tomorrow.

We wandered throughout the Historical District this morning and watched the preparations being made. Most of the store owners were friendly and anticipating a great weekend that probably will be their own version of Black Friday. And just for the record we did get into the old Mercantile store Mark and found it to be everything you promised. Lot’s of stuff I haven’t seen in 45 years still for sale on the shelves just as if time had stood still.

There are a lot of nice old homes in this district also and this one was undergoing a sprucing up to get it ready for the Festival.

After we had an excellent lunch at the Landing, Crawfish Etouffe for me, and Crab Cakes for Brenda, we took a spin out along the Cane River Lake and enjoyed some of the scenery there. It was a very peaceful afternoon along with some beautiful homes.

A beautiful old home along Cane River Lake.

While Brenda was wandering through one of the local cemetery’s I found this well disguised little fellow hopping around behind the church.

Tonight we headed back into town to have a look around at the Christmas lights. The street along the waterfront is decorated and across Cane River Lake is a large display of lights in various designs. They are all made at the town shop by town employees I guess.

Each year there is a couple of new designs and the Saints helmet on the right in the photo below is one of this years, celebrating their Super Bowl win back in February.

Tomorrow we move on to somewhere around Lafayette. Not sure where just yet but we had planned to meet an old friend over in Lake Charles but his work plans changed so he is unable to make it and we are just going to wander around in that country south of I-10 for the next week or so and then it will be time to head over towards Rollie and Gina’s for a visit with them. We got a call from Rollie while we were eating lunch today welcoming us to his and Gina’s home state. Thanks Rollie we are looking forward to seeing you guys. We’ll be in touch.

Texas in the Rearview Mirror

We were up early this morning and hooked up and ready to go by the time the folks at MCD Innovations popped out to make one last check of our blinds. I can’t and probably haven’t said enough about the folks here at MCD and all they have done to make sure we were fully satisfied with our new blinds. From the installers to the marketing folks and on up to the owner everyone has been helpful and a pleasure to deal with.

This morning we figured it was time to move on and put Texas in the rear-view mirror. We headed east out of McKinney on 380 and eventually joined I-20 over by Tyler, Texas. It was a beautiful day and pretty nice country to see rolling by. Once we got a few miles behind us we stopped at a picnic area and had a little brunch before heading on to Tyler where Brenda re-provisioned the rig while Meg and I washed the windshield.

It was a nice day for driving without to much wind and we averaged about 8.3 miles per gallon through the rolling hills of East Texas and down into Louisiana. Not great mileage for a car but pretty good for a house, pulling a pickup. And for those who keep track of such things that was moving along at 65 mph on the freeway and some stop and go before we got to Tyler as that is a two lane road that meanders through the small towns along the way. So not bad at all.

We stopped at the Louisiana Welcome Center and picked up some of the materials on a few places we are thinking of stopping while we are in the state. I didn’t see anything on Denham Springs but that is in our plans also as we need to see where Rollie and Gina have brought that piece of jade and the wagon wheel from the old wagon at the farm.

We noticed along the highway here in Louisiana that they must have been expecting Brenda. She was aghast at the garbage in the ditches last time we were here and from Shreveport south there has been a major clean-up going on and there are great piles of garbage bags at every intersection and we passed three crews working along the road getting it in shape. It is a beautiful state if you can see past the litter, so removing it will make it shine. So the crews must have already got your message Don.

Tonight we are at a campground in Natchitoches called the Nakatosh RV Park and Campground and I am thinking that the pronunciation of the town is close to the way the RV park sounds. We were first in this town back in 2003 on our 13 states in 17 day tour and we have always wanted to come back and have a little better look around. So over the next couple of days we are going to do just that.

Those who know me well know that I am pretty much a pro-oil business kind of guy and even my photographer seems to have caught the bug as she is catching images of drill rigs wherever we go. That is another reason we are in Louisiana, I thought after watching those same three pelicans flopping around in the oil on CNN for most of last spring and summer I would like to come down here and see for myself how much oil is still around. Lord knows that it is difficult to believe what you see on the news anymore.

OH, and one last thing, Brenda and I were interviewed for a Podcast on the American Rv’er last month so this month’s feature American Rv’er’s are really your two favourite Canadians. Catch it here on the December show of the American Rv’er.